Hatten column: Car crash into apartment affects Huskies

Players Ryan Papa, Daniel Tedesco and Ben Storm and equipment manager Matt Berger have been sleeping at homes of friends, teammates since accident on Sept. 21

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St. Cloud State hockey senior forward Daniel Tedesco takes a photograph of damage to his car after a car collided Wednesday, Sept. 21, with his apartment building. Tedesco was in practice across the street at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center when the accident happened. The building was declared unlivable until repairs are completed, leaving several SCSU hockey players without a home. (Photo: Dave Schwarz, dschwarz@stcloudtimes.com)Buy Photo

Three St. Cloud State University men's hockey players and a hockey equipment manager have spent the last 1½ weeks asking permission to get in and out of their apartment and scrambling for a place to sleep.

That's because on Sept. 21, a car crashed into the apartment they live in and the city inspections department has declared that their place is uninhabitable until the building can be repaired.

Senior forwards Ben Storm and Daniel Tedesco and redshirt junior forward Ryan Papa were at practice across the street at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center when the accident happened. Matt Berger, a sophomore from Burnsville and the equipment manager, was upstairs in the apartment that afternoon.

The car went up a small hill in front of the apartment, crashed through cement landscaping blocks and into the entryway.

"I had just gotten home and I was watching TV, getting ready to come in to work," said Berger, a business management major. "All of a sudden, it was the loudest bang I'd ever heard in my life. It got my heart going a little bit.

"The whole house shook. I didn't know anything had hit the house. I just knew that something had happened."

So Berger started to walk around the apartment to figure it out.

"I thought, at first, that an oven had exploded," Berger said. "I looked in the kitchen and nothing was there. I peeked my head around the corner and there was a car in the entryway. It was weird."

The shock

Berger said he called down to make sure everyone was OK and the driver of the car was not hurt. The car's brakes had gone out as the driver turned left onto 13th Street South from Fourth Avenue.

Once Berger established no one was injured, he had to figure out how to get out of the apartment.

"I was calling around and I called my dad and he said, 'Well, did you call 911?' I guess I didn't think to do that and I did," Berger said. "Then there was a cop knocking on windows and I told him I wanted to get out and the one door is locked and we don't have the key to it."

Berger moved a shoe rack and sheet rock that had been pushed in front of a door that leads to the garage and got out. Student David Wood, who works with the hockey team in statistical analysis, lives next door.

A look at the car crash aftermath at the apartment building where three St. Cloud State men's hockey players and one of the team's equipment manager's live.(Photo: Mick Hatten, mhatten@stcloudtimes.com)

Wood figured everyone in the apartment was at practice, went over to the arena and told coach Bob Motzko what had happened. Two parked vehicles were damaged; one of them is the car Tedesco drives.

Tedesco's car insurance information was needed for the police report and he was the first of the players told that he needed to go home.

"I was kind of in shock and I said, 'Why? What happened?'" Tedesco said. "They said that a car went through your house."

Still wearing his hockey breezers and shin pads, Tedesco got to his apartment and took photos of the crash and his car.

"The debris kind of went everywhere and there was a cinder block that landed on the roof of my car," said Tedesco, who received an estimate that his car had about $6,000 worth of damage.

When Tedesco left the ice at practice, Storm, Papa and the rest of his teammates were wondering why.

"The guys were kind of coming up with scenarios of why he was coming off the ice," Storm said with a smile.

"You don't see that too much, so we were wondering if he was in trouble and then coach (Motzko) comes on the ice and says, 'Who lives with Teddy?'" Papa said. "Me and Storm put our hands up. He said, 'Yeah, you've got a car in your house,' and everyone on the ice just goes nuts with cheering and laughing."

Reality sets in

After a tow truck pulled the car out and the police left, there was the reality that the four needed to find places to stay. Work on repairing the building has not begun and the tenants have been allowed only to go in and out to get some clothes and other items that they can carry out.

So the four of them have scattered to the homes of friends and teammates as everything gets figured out.

"Couches, spare beds, blankets ... I can fall asleep just about anywhere, so that's no big deal," said Storm, who is 6-foot-7.

Papa said that the players try to stay on sleep schedules and cook healthy food during the season and this has thrown a wrench into their routines.

"We don't know what the next day is going to bring, so we're trying to pack for 3-4 days and then the next day it's, 'Oh, I forgot this and I have to grab this,'" Papa said. "One of the first things we said to our landlords is, 'We're not going to be sleeping on someone's couches on a game day.'

"We try to eat healthy and you can't go grocery shopping and living on couches, you end up going out to eat, which you don't want as the season starts."

But all four roommates agree that the most important thing was that no one was hurt.

"It was like (the driver) dodged everything and then finally, our house stopped him in his tracks," said Tedesco, who has lived in the apartment with Papa and Storm for three years. "Thank God nobody was hurt. It could have been a lot worse."